The Great Lobster Invitation Reveal

My biggest DIY undertaking for the wedding was definitely our invitation suite. I designed the whole thing with a little help from some purchased stock images. By the time I created this gem, I had already completed at least six other designs. Since Mr. Rucksack and I couldn't agree, it was back to the drawing board. Maybe someday I'll open an Etsy shop so that all of those designs don't go to waste. I thought some of them were pretty darn cute:

A small sample of my nixed creative work

I decided to go back to our Save the Date roots and incorporate the lobsters again. I mean, who doesn't love an adorable lobster? I also stayed with the navy and white color scheme to appease Mr. Rucksack since he wasn't a fan of the pink and aqua colors I had used in the other invitation sets I created. After playing around with layouts, I went with a tri-fold card with lots of lobsters and shells:

The front of the invitation

Partially opened

All the deets

Back of the postcard Response Card

Invitation & Response Card

The whole suite, including the thank you card

For some reason, I naively thought that designing our invitations would actually save us money. (Our Save the Dates had been so inexpensive!) What I didn't consider was that we were now a) printing on both sides b) using much longer paper that had to be cut down to accommodate our 6x18 cards and c) having folds included. Folds cost money. Mad money. I was able to negotiate the price a little so they weren't ridiculously expensive, but we definitely could have saved money (and time!) by going the stock online route.

I used Allegra out of New Haven to print everything because I’ve worked with them for years through both my day job and my outside design work. They were wonderful to work with as always, but I was a little disappointed with how long it all took. They were a few days late on both of the proofs and then a day late on the final invitations. We were cutting it close to the advised 6-8 week mark as it was, so I was panicking a little. Everyone’s incessant nagging of “where’s my invitation?” did not help matters.

They ended up going out at the 7 week mark which Miss Manners assures me is just fine. And I have to tell you, all of the praise we've received made them seem well worth the wait and the price.

One of my favorite parts of the invitation was our envelope. In Photoshop, I manipulated our lobster graphic from the invitations so that his claws would hold our stamps. The body wrapped around the top of the invitation and became part of our address label. I know I would smile if I had a little lobster delivering my mail!

Did you DIY your invitations? What was your biggest challenge?